This Is Chris Kreider’s Breakout Season
Nearly 11 months ago, I told my friend that Chris Kreider was “big and fast and not a superb hockey player”. I believed that the Rangers should trade him, possibly packaging him with Girardi or Staal to get something decent in return. I thought that he didn’t have the close-quarters hands and the hockey IQ required to turn into the supposed 60+ point scoring power forward who would terrorize opponents that he had always been hyped up to be.
On November 26, 2015, I wasn’t nearly as well-versed in hockey analytics as I am today. If I were, I probably wouldn’t have had such an exaggerated reaction to a short period of play. But even looking back, there are signs that Kreider wasn’t playing well. He had 10 points in 23 games and was in the midst of a six-game pointless streak. In addition, this graphic from Micah Blake McCurdy (one of my favorite follows on Twitter, @IneffectiveMath, this comes from his website Hockey Viz) shows Kreider’s Corsi For and Against (per 60) throughout the 2015–2016 season:
I’ve highlighted that portion of the season in the blue box. You can see that for much of his first 22 games, Kreider was struggling to generate strong offense and was bleeding shots defensively, including a terrible stretch in those last few games. Based on the eye test, meanwhile, he was struggling to handle the puck down low, missed open passes, made poor decisions in his defensive end and would flip-flop between being invisible on the ice and running around taking needless penalties.
Of course, as the numbers would have explained to me, Kreider wouldn’t keep playing like that for long. Even in his first three seasons, when he was generally considered an inconsistent player, Kreider ranked first among NYR forwards in relative Corsi For %, meaning that he influenced a positive shot differential more so than any other forward on the team during those years. Kreider has been on an upward trend for the past few seasons, which is exactly what you would want out of a young player in whom you invested a first round pick and considerable playing time. Look at his HERO charts from 2014 to 2016 and notice the improvement in every category:
As you can see, Kreider has improved in every category tracked by the chart in each season, last year finishing as a “first-line” caliber player in every metric except shot suppression, where he was still a second liner. He’s always been a prolific goal scorer, despite not having scored more than 21 in a season, and a shot generator. His ability to add a strong playmaking element to his game, as well as dependable defensive play, has rounded out his game and been representative of his maturation.
By the end of last season, my opinion on Kreider had changed. He was scoring big goals for the Rangers and using his body better and more consistently. As one of the largest and most physical players on a team that is mainly comprised of smaller, shiftier players, Kreider’s ability to impose his will physically is important to the Rangers keeping a balanced style of play which can beat any team. In past seasons Kreider would shy away from contact for periods at a time before taking an ill-advised penalty by running someone into the boards, but by late last year he seemed to have a better understanding of how to use his incredibly rare combination of speed and strength.
The trade for Mika Zibanejad aside, Chris Kreider’s contract extension was the largest move made by Jeff Gorton this offseason. The winger signed a four-year contract that carries an annual cap hit of $4.625 million, a very reasonable price for a player who can produce the way he can. The media began discussing the importance of Kreider’s offseason and the need for him to emerge as a core player for the Rangers while producing like a star. While his underlying statistics were favorable, fans and team officials alike have been waiting to see the season that Kreider would put it all together and put up 50 or even 60 points. Then this season started.
Now, considering how often I talk about statistics on this site, it’s necessary to clarify that we are talking about an incredibly small sample size here. Kreider has played just over 50 minutes at even strength this season and we’ve seen many instances of players who are among the league leaders in points after a week but are nowhere to be found two months later. Richard Panik, to use an example this year, will in all likelihood not remain a top five goal scorer for the entire season. Even on a small scale, however, the frequency of shot attempts can make shot-based statistics a bit clearer in terms of evaluating performance and help to provide a bit of validity to early scoring success. Here is a chart detailing Kreider’s performance in several key metrics across each of his seasons, including this year:
The reason why I’m sharing these numbers is because it’s not just that Kreider got hot and scored a few lucky goals, such as the top shelf goal against Martin Jones and the Sharks. In fact, his luck, represented by PDO on the far right (PDO is the sum of his team’s shooting percentage and his team’s save percentage while he is on the ice), is easily the lowest it’s been for any season in his career. Despite this, every single other statistic listed here is well above his career bests to this point. Many of these numbers have to come down — the best season-long RelCF/60 for a player in the last five years was Sidney Crosby in 2012–13, when he posted an incredible 18.18. Kreider likely won’t continue to score 3.44 points per 60 minutes of play — last season’s leader, Jaromir Jagr, only scored 2.70 P/60. But through four games this season, he’s done everything well. He’s generating shots at an insane rate, both individually (iCF/60 measures his individual shot attempts per 60 minutes) and through his indirect play, he’s suppressing shots incredibly well, he’s even hitting very well. While hitting has been slandered by analytics proponents because of its low correlation to puck possession, Kreider is managing to hit more frequently than ever before while also dominating possession.
If there are just too many numbers there for you and you’re getting a bit confused, here is the takeaway: while the season is still incredibly young, Chris Kreider has played about as strong of a first four games as you could ask for from any player in the NHL. He’s creating so much offense for the Rangers, he’s shutting down his opponents and he’s been a physical presence without being a detriment to the team’s success. He’s doing everything right and, while he’s bound to hit some tougher times this season, if he continues to play with the focus and intensity he has, this season will easily be his best yet.
